Rock, paper, scissors: the best and worst DE match-ups

Hey there folks! I'm still fairly new to this addition of the game. not counting the formations that are cheesy to any faction (such as scatter bikes, decurion) what faction match ups do you think are the hardest for dark Eldar to tackle? What factions do we shine against, relatively speaking? If you were to rank the difficulty in a list, what factions would be hardest to play against and what would be easiest?

I'm not familiar with most of the factions out there but I assume that with our poison anything horde-like would be vulnerable: orks... Even IG. Seems like mechanized armies are tough ( I'm looking at Knights here!)

Well, Eldar is the hardest for sure, and Tyranids are the easiest.

I'd say our "ideal prey" has been narrowed down to nurgle chaos marines.  Chaos marines are pretty weak to begin with, but one of their few remaining strategies is high toughness bikes and chaos spawn en mass.  It's pretty satisfying to gun down a whole squad of toughness 6 models before they do anything substantial.

As for worst match up?  Eldar are pretty nasty in general - but I think some of the codex marines are just as bad:

White scars for example can be made to do just about anything the dark eldar do... except better of course.  Their bikes basically ignore terrain, while their infantry re-roll run distances. Their formations give bonuses like transports moving an extra 6" before disembarking, or bikes/jump packs moving 2d6" after firing.  On top of all that there is the fact that every unit has hit and run...  Cuz tarpitting anything was apparently cheating.

Equally as bad are drop-pod salamander lists, only because of how many (beefed up) flamers they can pack in and how badly those flamers screw over open top transports.  Some of the recent FAQ's proposed changes are actually going to make this worse.

I play in a highly SM competitive area, (Skyhammer Formtions, WS Rhino/bike spam, Teleporting Deathstarts, 3++ Rerolling saves with Grav/Plasma talon bikes etc...).

I do fairly well against SM but I never have any chance against Eldar. SM has nasty tools, but honestly they have clear ways to beat each list. Where eldar has the firepower, psychic defense and mobility that are better than marines.

Eldar has better MSU with better stats, cheaper and more firepower, everything about eldar is just better than DE.

Tau and Shooty Eldar are probably the most difficult. Anything with gargantuan creatures is really bad for us because of the 6+ poison rule they get.

On the easier side, probably Chaos Daemons and/or Tyranids. That's not to say they're always a walk in the park, however. They both have some good tricks available to them, and against tyranid flyer spam, mass psykers, or improved invulnerable saves, we can be a bit impotent.

Triple Storm Raven Blood Angel list against Haemnculous Coven can be rough. the armor on the birds is realy tough for us to do anything about when they hover and other like types of lists provide a pretty good challenge to Haemonculous Coven forces. Scissorhands is kinda a thing becuase of it.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Tau and Shooty Eldar are probably the most difficult. Anything with gargantuan creatures is really bad for us because of the 6+ poison rule they get.

Thats my exp as well.

Drop Pod Purifiers with a couple of shunting Nemesis Dreadknights is an auto loose if you don't deploy inch perfect...and I mean INCH perfect...."oh the humanity...."

Hopefully that list goes away when the FAQ is finalised.

Drop Pod Purifiers with a couple of shunting Nemesis Dreadknights is an auto loose if you don't deploy inch perfect...and I mean INCH perfect...."oh the humanity...."

Hopefully that list goes away when the FAQ is finalised.

Painjunky wrote:

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Tau and Shooty Eldar are probably the most difficult. Anything with gargantuan creatures is really bad for us because of the 6+ poison rule they get.

Thats my exp as well.

I'll 3rd this.

Easier matchups for us tend to include the weaker codices, natch.
So Orks, Chaos, Nids, and SoB are all much kinder matchups because their dexes are on par/weaker than ours.
I disagree about the GK flamer/Nemesis bomb, that is a bad matchup if you deploy poorly, but if you deploy well and/or work reserves then it's not a big issue at all and is easy to pick apart.
I would toss out Dark Angel Ravenwing bike lists, and to a slightly lesser degree the new White Scar Bike deal as problematic, as they are as fats and shooty as us, but more survivable to boot. Those issues are ameliorated depending on your own build though.
I don't think Knights are a big issue for us, though massed AV12 spam can assuredly be (read - Wave Serpents or Chimera spam)
If it's Space Marine and not on a bunch of bikes I'm usually not worried.
If it's Eldar I'm worried.
If it's Tau and has a bunch of suits, I'm worried.
If it's shooty mech spam, I'm worried.
If it's a smaller more expensive/tough army I'm less worried.

I play SOB also, 5k army of them, Im if played right (Alpha Strike multi CAD MSU) DE will lose turn 1.

12 Rending HF with 20 Ignore cover melta guns with another 10 TW-Melta that all Scout and shoot turn 1-2 is really hard unless you are playing Long ways.

With Drop Pod rules changing in the FAQs (If it does change Im mostly sure it will) it did hurt SOB alot, cant Drop pod in 7 Pods of HF/Melta anyone on turn 1.

I would love to see your list, as I have just recently started playing Sisters, and though I rather love the army and the challenge I have not come up with, nor against, a list that I thought would give my DE more than a momentary pause.

The rending Flamers would have to be Retributors, which means less Exorcists, and though I don't think that's bad (I'm doing the same, with the goal of multi CAD though I don't have enough mech yet for that...and I'm running Heavy Bolters on mine) it's not like Heavy Flamers in a Rhino/Immolater are easy to lock DE down with if the DE player is playing half smart. 12 of them suggests you're running 3 squads at a minimum of 420 points. Let's see, and the Dominions would be 825 with Immolaters. So the list you're talking about has to be at least a 1750 even if the only other things you take are HQs and Troops to fulfill your needs, and that would be walking Sisters.

Yeah, that's a nasty front punch, but if I have a 1750+ point army to punch back, I don't dislike my chances, and that presumes you get the first turn and that I set up in a way that will allow the Rhino rush Sisters to get to grips with a lot of my army.

Feels like even in a classic deployment along the long board edges, wherein you get first turn, I could deploy a squad or two of meat along my board edge (disembarked Warriors) to push back your Scout bubble, deploy in a corner castle, and be able to vastly minimize the initial barrage. Or, even if I wanted to dance the dance, just hug my back edge in a long line, knowing you'd have to really toss your Scouts forward to get them into me, and figuring my greater mobility would allow me to inflict more damage than a theoretical loss of 5 paper planes.

At 1750 my usual list tends to be;
Succubus w. Grots in Raider
6x Warriors w. Blasters in Venoms and Raiders
3x Ravagers
3x Razorwings (though I sometimes will take a 1x Scourge unit instead, and Death From the Skies may shake this up depending on how it affects tournaments)

I mostly foresee Sisters barreling forward, donking maybe a couple of transports, getting shot up as most of my army moves away, eating a Grot counter charge (that can eat any of the units you're describing, and as long as they have cover assuredly absorb a ton of the potential counter shooting you have) leaving my army mostly out of range by Turn 2+ as fliers eventually show up and carpet bomb squads out of existence as I plink down vehicles.

I see the major issues being the theory lists weakness to my assault tools, lack of anti-air tools, and relative limited mobility after the Rhino Rush.

Am I underselling you? Do you tend to play at a higher point total and have different tools? What is your answer to fliers and to maneuverability issues. My current solution has actually been Exorcists and and using Seraphim, but I'm not overly pleased by either option, but I don't see Scouting Dominions being a full answer. They look like a solid possibility to answer a lack of Exorcists, which sounds cool, but don't have the same board control aspect into the later game, and are rather a bit more squishy.

Thoughts?

I also play Adepta Sororitas.  They are really quite good.  here  is what I use and I think it would cause Dark eldar some problems, partly because it plays somewhat the same game Dark eldar do.

Total Roster Cost: 1850

: Combined Arms Detachment (Primary Detachment) (68#, 1850 pts)

  4 Retributor Squad(Simulacrum Imperialis + Heavy Flamer x4)
     1 Veteran Retributor Superior (Melta Bombs + Combi-Flamer x1)
     1 Rhino(Dozer Blade)

  1 Exorcist

  4 Battle Sister Squad (Flamer + Flamer)
     1 Sister Superior, (Melta Bombs)
     1 Rhino (Hunter-killer Missile)

  4 Battle Sister Squad (Flamer + Flamer)
     1 Sister Superior, (Melta Bombs)
     1 Rhino (Hunter-killer Missile)

  7 Repentia Squad
     1 Rhino (Hunter-killer Missile)

  1 Ecclesiarchy Battle Conclave
     2 Crusader, 8 Death Cult Assassin
     1 Rhino (Hunter-killer Missile)

  1 Uriah Jacobus

  1 Canoness (Combi-Flamer x1+ Melta Bombs+ Rosarius, 1 Mantle of Ophelia)

  1 Ministorum Priest (Melta Bombs, 1 Litanies of Faith)

  7 Dominion Squad (Simulacrum Imperialis + Meltagun x4)
     1 Veteran Dominion Superior (Melta Bombs + Combi-Meltagun x1)
     1 Rhino

  7 Dominion Squad (Simulacrum Imperialis + Meltagun x4)
     1 Veteran Dominion Superior (Melta Bombs + Combi-Meltagun x1)
     1 Rhino

  7 Dominion Squad (Simulacrum Imperialis + Meltagun x4)
     1 Veteran Dominion Superior (Melta Bombs + Combi-Meltagun x1)
     1 Rhino( Laud Hailer)

Unorthodoxy wrote:

I also play Adepta Sororitas.  They are really quite good.  here  is what I use and I think it would cause Dark eldar some problems, partly because it plays somewhat the same game Dark eldar do.

I actually agree with this - Sisters currently play oddly like DE.

What's the point of the Repentia squad? I love the models, and kind of toy with them out of that love, but the only real use I have found for them is vehicle/walker bashing and even that is a bit 'ehhh'.

Also, to the point of the topic, I don't see Sisters causing any headaches that a Marine army couldn't cause, and the Marines could probably do most of it better.

I dont play with Exorcists